Bishop I.V. Hilliard, celebrating 50 years in ministry, has seen his New Life Christian Center grow into a megachurch comprising six campuses - four in Houston, plus locations in Austin and Beaumont. New Light boasts 20,000 members.

Bishop I.V. Hilliard, celebrating 50 years in ministry, has seen his New Life Christian Center grow into a megachurch comprising six campuses - four in Houston, plus locations in Austin and Beaumont. New Light

Hilliard, center, travels from one pulpit to another on Sunday via helicopter, which he sees not as a success symbol but just as a way to better serve his church.

Hilliard, center, travels from one pulpit to another on Sunday via helicopter, which he sees not as a success symbol but just as a way to better serve his church.

Photo: Melissa Phillip

Image 4 of 4

Houston pastor's 50 years of ministry honored

1 / 4

Back to Gallery

Ira V. Hilliard, boy preacher turned man, saw clearly the life that lay before him. And it carried a promise of success that many who had grown up poor and wanting in Houston's historically black northeast side would have jumped at if they'd had his talents.

His part of the bargain was a weekly offering of thunder and lightning, fire and brimstone, gospel music mixed with baritone exhortations that would echo among the organ pipes and steeple of some luminous cathedral. Emotionalism, he called it. A performance for the believers. The expected role of the Baptist minister - African-American style - that accompanied a church and a flock and centuries of deprivation so profound that only the lure of a world beyond this one could provide comfort and redemption.

But then came the day in 1984 when Hilliard told parishioners of a new road he was preparing to travel. This was God's doing, he said, a move that would veer away from any particular denomination and their rote weekly rituals. And for him it was a welcome move away from the internal politics so common in churches big and small. God had spoken to him and told him to change.

"I was to become a teacher instead of a high- emotional preacher," said Hilliard, whose life and works are being honored by his congregation this weekend. "I had been on a personal search for more - for a more relevant relationship with God, for the Bible to become more relevant to people's lives."

The New Light Missionary Baptist Church was no more, he announced one Sunday. The 300 or so members were shocked. Worship outside the context of the familiar - all the rituals that made church, well, church - did not have great appeal.

"Only 23 stayed with me," Hilliard said. "I suddenly had a ministry, not a church. Independent churches were not popular then."

Warehouse of worship

The 60-year-old Hilliard, who began preaching when he was almost 10 years old, promised that someday his ministry would flourish in all corners of Houston and that God had told them he would have 18,000 followers. Until that time, however, they needed a spot with a roof, air conditioning and lights.

He and his few followers met in a storefront and later in a defunct Assemblies of God church. His ministry began to grow and never stopped. One day he and his wife, Bridget, went driving around north Houston looking for another location that could accommodate a rapidly expanding membership. They settled on an office park in Greenspoint.

An office park?

"Ira said to me, 'People will not come to worship in a warehouse,' " said his wife, who assists with pastoral duties. "I told him to pray on it. And I think God spoke to him."

At the time, his ministry was all but penniless. Hilliard gave the property's owner a hot check as a deposit and told him he would let him know when he could cash it. It took awhile. Almost in the same breath he mentioned that one day his church would own the entire office complex, and that Hilliard's office would occupy the same spot as that where the owner was sitting. The owner just laughed.

"We had no money but we had integrity and we had a commitment from God," Bridget Hilliard said.

Fifty years in ministry

Today, New Light Christian Center is a megachurch comprising six campuses in three cities. Hilliard is near retirement age but not pondering retirement, even as he keeps grooming one of his three daughters as his replacement. New Light boasts more than 20,000 members and is a main partner in a satellite TV channel. It has locations on all points of Houston's compass, as well as in Austin and Beaumont. And he has the old owner's corner office.

"I believe he is the greatest teacher of the word of God," his wife said. "He makes the complex simple. He guarantees that if you will sit and listen to him for 90 days, it will make an impact on your life."

Ira Van Hilliard's 50 years in ministry are being celebrated with a series of events this weekend that will draw well-wishers, former members and fellow ministers. One such celebration was a gala that included several gospel music stars.

Although less known than his friend T.D. Jakes in Dallas or Lakewood Church's Joel Osteen (whose father was a longtime supporter), Hilliard has made his mark. New Light has been named one of the country's 50 most influential churches by Church Report magazine.

New Light member Malachi Johnson, 54, said Hilliard's approach to ministry is the reason for its success, and the approach is as notable for what is not there as for what is: no overpowering charisma, no dramatic moments of revelation, no talking in tongues or swooning at the altar.

"He is very astute at using his voice to communicate, but never in the old-time way," said Johnson, who began attending in 1996. "He says if you come to my church, you are going to have to think."

Johnson appreciated that. A former senior tax attorney for Texaco, he had spent years in a classroom listening. But this was different. Shortly after joining the church, he was in a car accident in downtown Houston that took the life of his wife, leaving him not only to mourn her but to raise two small girls. The church saved him, not simply by helping with funeral arrangements, but by showing a light at the end of the tunnel.

"A lot of people come to church with problems," said Johnson, who eventually left the corporate world to become New Light's general counsel. "People need answers, and they may not think of turning to the Bible for answers. Then you come through that door and realize: In here are some answers, and here's a person teaching me the word in a way that I can apply what is taught. It was pastor's teaching that let me know I would recover."

'Prosperity' redefined

New Light is at times grouped with other churches that promote a so-called "prosperity gospel," a strain of modern Christianity that claims material reward is a natural manifestation of God's will. The Hilliards do not disagree with the label but claim that the implicit criticism ignores the crux of what New Light is about: the scriptural message.

"Is it God's will for people to have a better life through him? Yes," Ira Hilliard said. "Are there excesses? Yes. An abundant life is one that is better than what you had before. God gives you desires of the heart, for sure. But some people have misguided expectations. … The Bible says we are complete in him."

The popularity of prosperity gospel megachurches such as Hilliard's is not some sort of fad that should be dismissed as outside the Christian norm, said Rice University professor Anthony Pinn, an expert on African-American religious practice who has written a variety of books on the subject. Most churches, Pinn said, emphasize the link between devotion to God and a better life. The prosperity gospel simply says that a manifestation of the better life often will be material success.

"When they talk about prosperity, they are talking about overall quality of life, rather than just having stuff," Pinn said. "And what church isn't concerned about people having good and fulfilling lives? But I would say that even with these churches there is concern about what one does with this material success."

Pinn sees prosperity theology as simply a spiritualized version of the American dream. That narrative is played out again and again with many megachurch members and their preachers, including Hilliard, who rose up from nothing to become affluent, as has his ministry. But Hilliard insists the affluence is not the issue so much as what is done with it.

Having resources enables the church to run a variety of programs, including a substance-abuse and rehabilitation program that is offered at no cost, he said.

It also lets Hilliard travel from church to church on Sunday by helicopter, not as a symbol of success, but just as a way of getting from one place to another in timely fashion, the better to serve his members, he said.

Simplicity the key

Hilliard said the heart of his ministry is not about a reassuring message, the promise of wealth or an entertaining program, but about learning the lesson that God provides through Scripture. His wife likens him to a university professor whose task is to painstakingly offer students a proper understanding of the relevant material.

"He can sing and he could do the hoop-and-holler style of preaching," Bridget Hilliard said. "But he said that God told him to stand flat-footed and teach the word. People keep coming and listening to the word of God because it helps them deal with their individual lives. It's just his simplicity in how he approaches it and not trying to be somebody else - just himself."

Hilliard himself claims to have no extraordinary talent. The major moves he has made in his life, he said, merely came after God told him what to do. Churchgoers who crave liturgy and ritual will look elsewhere, and Hilliard is fine with that.

Finding fulfillment

"Relevant" is one of his favorite words. That's the mission he says was given to him almost three decades ago: Take the sacred words that have been passed down for centuries and explain them in modern context, to show in the most concrete way how they are relevant in people's everyday lives.

"I am on assignment from the Lord," Hilliard said. "Did we have tough times? Oh, yes. But God has provided."

As much as Hilliard appeared born for the ministry - his wife said she knew that was his calling when they were attending Lyons Unity Missionary Baptist Church - he started a career as a systems analyst for the now-defunct Litton Industries. He was only a part-time minister. He wanted to keep it that way.

"I wanted nice things for my family, and it was a great job," he recalled. "At one time I begged God to let me quit (the church). I didn't have the time for it."

When instructed by a higher power to quit the other job instead, Hilliard complied. He said his manager told him he was making a big mistake and that the church would not amount to much.

Now his old company is no more, having been bought out by a defense contractor in 2001, while the church Hilliard built has become one of the largest in Texas.

"I know my purpose," he said. "You cannot run a full race without being fulfilled."